3 secure messaging apps that will keep your texts safe from the NSA
Privacy is a growing concern with Donald Trump's America looming in 2017. More and more people are signing up for encrypted email servers and messaging apps, and you can do the same. There is a legitimate fear of what Trump's administration means for government surveillance. Check out these secure messaging apps you can use to keep yourself protected.
Signal
Signal is widely recognized as one of the best secure messaging apps — even Edward Snowden thinks so. It's free, which may give you even more incentive to download it. Using your own phone number and contact book you can message (or even call) securely on a server that never stores any of your data.
WhatsApp would perhaps be the top recommended messaging app if it weren't for the fact that it's owned by Facebook, which can't be entirely trusted given its tendency to, you know, sell personal information to advertisers. We're not saying Facebook and the team of WhatsApp actually collude in this manner, but it does give one pause when thinking about it. Still, WhatsApp took strides to implement end-to-end encryption — making it awfully hard to intercept messages — and there's also the fact that it's the world's most popular messaging service with about a billion users. Chances are you won't even have to convince someone to download the app — they probably already have it.
Silent Phone
If you're willing to dish out about 10 bucks a month, check out Silent Phone, an excellent encrypted communication app for voice, video and text messaging. Why the extra cost? The servers are so good they're trusted by the U.S. government. All messages utilize end-to-end encryption and self-destruct after passing through the company's secure network.
